Mr. Crisp and his wife, Emilie, were attending Shen Yun at The Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, on May 28.

“I loved it. It was beautiful, the costumes were amazing. All [this] sparkliness … and I feel like you could really feel the story when they were dancing.”

She particularly enjoyed “Plum Blossom in Spring,” a dance that portrays the courage of plum blossoms as they brave the winter cold. emerging before the spring arrives.

“[I was] just inspired by the value and in awe of the dance. The symphony took me away with the dancing. And the whole storyline was just epic,” he said.

Also present were Alyona Bragina, a professional dancer and gymnast from Ukraine, and Christian Larson, an accountant.

“The dancers were perfection. They are elegant,” she said. “Their eyes were looking up, not on the floor. And when they leaped, they were soundless, which is so important,” she added.

She was touched by the dance “Insanity During the End of Days,” a story of spiritual people who are arrested for their beliefs. The dance depicts the death of a Falun Dafa practitioner who is murdered by her unwitting father, who is a communist party official, for her organs. Falun Dafa is an ancient Chinese spiritual practice rooted in the Buddhist tradition. It is currently banned in China.

“So deep, so many emotions. It was not just like dance, it was really an amazing story. I was really sad and I wanted to cry,” Ms. Bragina said.

“I like the amazing [movements] with ribbons because in rhythmic gymnastics we use [them]. They are really professional girls,” she said.

He was also surprised to learn that Shen Yun’s orchestra, a blend of classical Western and traditional Chinese instruments, was a live performance. “Very well put together, right on cue, everything is great,” he said.

“The message was … peace and harmony, and that we will eventually be saved. It teaches, probably all of us, to have really good humanity across the board, to love each other, to work with each other,” he said.

Mr. Larson praised Shen Yun’s goal to revive the true traditional Chinese culture.

“They’re doing a great job. It’s wonderful to see such amazing athletic dancers perform. We'd like to see more of what the culture should be or was,” he said.

“We really enjoy their hard work, you can see that they put in many years. We’re both athletes and so we understand what it takes to train for these [performances].”